REVIEW: “Perseus on Two Wheels” by H. Pueyo

Review of H. Pueyo, “Perseus on Two Wheels”, in Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was, edited by Dave Ring, (Mason Jar Press, 2018): 35-44 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

It’s one thing when the gods start answering the prayers of their petitioners.

It’s another thing when they start answering the prayers of their petitioners…but not all of them, no matter how hard they prayed. When the gods didn’t answer Perseu Batista’s prayers, he “had to afford the transition all by himself, clandestine hormones and all” (p. 36).

Which turned out to not necessarily be a bad thing: For when “the king”, the one with the power to command the gods began to lose control, Perseu of all the people in Morro do Alderamin didn’t have to worry about losing what the gods had given, because they’d never given him anything, he’d bought his new body and his new life himself. Which means that he’s got nothing to lose, when he hears that the king has tied his daughter Andressa to the radio mast to sacrifice her to the gods.

It took a few pages for me to clock which story this tale was retelling, and then I grinned the entire rest of the way through. What a lovely, light-hearted, happy story.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Master Brahms” by Storm Humbert

Review of Storm Humbert, “Master Brahms”, Apex Magazine 114 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Seven versions of Master Brahms live together – six synths, or clones, and the original. Synths don’t like to think about being synths, so the original allows them each the illusion of such as much as possible. Things come to a head when six Brahms find that the seventh has been murdered by one of the remaining six, and the house computer has been compromised by whichever is the killer.

This is a satisfying closed room murder mystery. The murder is intriguing, but is also not the main point. No, the real question of this story is: which Brahms is the original? Deep down, that is the only question that matters to any of them, and the murder is just a way to bring that question into the foreground for them. I’ve read plenty of stories about clones, but I don’t recall ever seeing one about how a clone would psychologically cope with being a clone before. This is fresh, fascinating territory.

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REVIEW: “The City of Cats” by Victoria Zelvin

Review of Victoria Zelvin, “The City of Cats”, in Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was, edited by Dave Ring, (Mason Jar Press, 2018): 28-34 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Naoko draws cats, and “she’s very good at it” (p. 28). Every morning before her wife leaves for work, she draws one for her. Her other cats roam the city, drawn on walls, on buildings, on sidewalks. No one ever sees Naoko draw them, but they are all hers. The city itself is also filled with live cats — more than there are people, Naoko’s wife (the narrator) sometimes wonders — and Naoko and her wife have their own live cat as well, Bubbles.

When Naoko says she draws cats for her wife for luck, for safety, she means it in a very real, concrete sense, as her wife learns by the end of this is quick, sweet tale.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Neon” by M. Raoulee

Review of M. Raoulee, “Neon”, in Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was, edited by Dave Ring, (Mason Jar Press, 2018): 7–27 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

This, as they say, is a story with all the feels. Wonder, uncertainty, tugging at heart-strings, strangeness, confusion, delight, tenderness.

“Neon” is the story of motorcycle-builder, combustion-lover, financial-advisor, heretic Quinn, who lives in a realm where electricity has taken over everything, including and most especially motors; few people, any more, care about the old combustion engines, and those that do — the riders — are tarred as misfits and outcasts. His city is filled with Sylphs and Fulminations and Undines and Shades who travel through the aether, and who can be called from the aether to perform services. Quinn’s world is one where enchantment and sorcery is entwined with electricity and salt and heresy. So much of this we can see on the surface of the story; and so much more is hinted beneath. I loved the way that Raoulee built such a detailed picture of the unknown city, and yet so much of the details to the reader to fill in. I loved seeing the way in which Quinn interacted with his friends, associates, and employers, and from the moment he stumbled into Archae and Archae got onto Quinn’s motorcycle behind him, I loved Archae. A stellar start to the anthology!

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was edited by Dave Ring

Review of Dave Ring, ed., Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was (Mason Jar Press, 2018) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I first learned of this anthology late fall 2017, when the call for submissions went out. The concept immediately caught my interest:

We are looking for stories that explore the edges of urban fantasy through queer stories. While the city these stories are set in should be vast and unnamed, highly specific neighborhoods and landmarks are encouraged and sought after. We welcome a broad interpretation of the genre that is inclusive of postmodern folk tales, future/ancient noir, and stories that happen both behind closed doors and in plain sight. Throughout, we’re looking for rich, varied and nuanced understandings of gender, family and ethnicity.

I loved the idea of a series of stories that are all connected, but the ways in which they are connected are left to the reader, and not the writer, to specify. So I was extremely delighted to be offered a review copy of the anthology, because now I get to see how that original conception came to fruition.

The 10 stories in this collection spam the gamut of gritty to sweet to sensual to sad. As a whole, they give a sense of a complex and rewarding city, some place I’d like to visit, some place I’d like to set a story of my own in. In his editor’s note, Ring points out the important power of fiction “to bear witness”, and the importance of witnessing queer characters in the forefront of stories, not on the sidelines. These stories come together in a powerful way to bear this witness, and I highly recommend this collection.

As usual, we’ll review each story individually, and link the reviews back here when they are posted:

Sara L. Uckelman10 Comments

REVIEW: “Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or: I Didn’t Even Need a Map” by Gary A. Braunbeck

Review of Gary A. Braunbeck, “Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or: I Didn’t Even Need a Map”, Apex Magazine 114 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Glenn’s sister, Janice is dying of AIDS. She is raunchy and funny and loud, and refuses to sanitize her experience for anyone’s else’s comfort. Glenn is withdrawn and hurting and really, truly trying his best, but he doesn’t think it’s good enough. Before she goes, she arranges for him to receive a gift that she hopes will help him.

This story is a poignant, realistic depiction of people dealing with death in all of the messy, ugly, ways that real people do. And yet, in the end, the story circles around to a kind of peace that defies expectation. If I give you too many hints into how we get there, it might deprive you of fully experiencing the journey, and that would be a shame.

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REVIEW: “Dark Clouds & Silver Linings” by Ingrid Garcia

Review of Ingrid Garcia, “Dark Clouds & Silver Linings”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 309-319. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

What a peculiar story. It’s a strange mix of stream of consciousness, name-dropping, song lyrics, and snippets of poems. There are characters, and a narrative driving the main one, Ada, forward, but I found the telling of the narrative very blunt; at times the piece read more like notes for a story than an actual story.

I suspect others will enjoy the experimental nature of this piece more than I did; I kept wanting more to sink my teeth in to than I got. But I applaud the inclusion of it in this anthology, because it was distinctive from all the other stories in both form and content, and helps demonstrate the diversity of ways a single theme can be interpreted.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Toward a New Lexicon of Augury” by Sabrina Vourvoulias

Review of Sabrina Vourvoulias, “Toward a New Lexicon of Augury”, Apex Magazine 114 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

In this magical post-apocalyptic story, the Mole Street Mob, composed of witches, brujas, and cunning folk, only wants to protect their community from gentrification. Of course, that puts them at odds with the city government, and that rarely ends well.

The world-building really makes this story. It’s drawn in light brush strokes, but the result is evocative. There was some terrible event years ago that restructured society. Electricity is dearly expensive. Witches exist not only on the fringes of society, but in law enforcement and city planning. And yet, in some very fundamental ways, their society is very similar to our own. Racism still keeps some people marginalized, and those at the top still abuse their power. Which means that the disenfranchised need to be all the more cunning with their use of magic, since it is neither secret nor rare.

I loved how Alba, the main character, used her augury to plan the big magical working they need to do. It didn’t deliver a fully formed plan for the gang to use, but offered her hints and glimpses and partial instructions that she had to piece together. Divination is too rarely used to good effect, and this felt like a unique and rewarding interpretation of the subject.

All in all, a moving story about the power of resistance, and of love.

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REVIEW: “This Lexicon of Bone and Feathers” by Carlie St. George

Review of Carlie St. George, “This Lexicon of Bone and Feathers”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 291-307. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This is a peculiar little story that I enjoyed very much and have a hard time describing or summarising. Where to begin? There are so many little bits and pieces and aspects of it that if I try to highlight one of them I’d be leaving out crucial others. Shall I start with the difficulties facing inter-species academic conferences? Or how everything changes when the unthinkable happens? Or perhaps the very distinct characters, each drawn from very distinct species, with distinct modes of communication, not just in their languages but in the way they interact with the world. Any one of these things that I could choose to talk about wouldn’t begin to give a proper picture of the complexity that went into this story.

Perhaps if there is one thing that sums up the story it is this: The poetry made from teeth. Wanna know more? Read the story.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “For Sale: Fantasy Coffins (Ababuo Need Not Apply)” by Chesya Burke

Review of Chesya Burke, “For Sale: Fantasy Coffins (Ababuo Need Not Apply)”, Apex Magazine 113 (2018): Read Online. Originally published in Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany (2015). Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Eleven year old Ababuo wishes she could have a fantasy coffin, the fantastic, intricately carved creations favored by the rest of the residents of Accra, Ghana. She will never have one, however, because she is Nantew yiye, which means that she can never be buried in the ground, even though it also means that she will die soon.

This is a chilling look a the reciprocity between life and death, made all the more chilling because the agent is a child. Seeing a child reduced to a tool in this way made my stomach churn, but I can’t deny that this is a powerful story. Just not a comfortable one. If you’re anything like me, expect to take some time to let this story settle after you’ve finished if.

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